Lemon Blueberry Cheesecake Bars

This is my last week before I start work again, and I wanted to bake as many things as possible before I say goodbye to my freedom. With 1 lemon and half a bag of frozen wild blueberries needing to be used, I decided to try making these bars that I once saw on someone else's blog. These bars have a light lemon flavor from the lemon zest and juice, and the wild blueberries offer a little pop of sweet juice as you're eating them. I absolutely love the combination of lemon and blueberries. 

So here we go. First off, you need to make the crust for the bars. I love crust on cheesecake and wanted to make sure that I had enough to suit my liking. You can always lessen the amount of crust if you're not as big of a fan as I am. Also, the fact that these are bars and not a normal round cheesecake gave me even more reason to up the amount of crust. Do as you like! I found this box in the baking aisle. 

Already crushed graham crackers for baking! How great is that?? It saves you the time and energy of crushing them yourself, although if you're in need of stress pounding, by all means, go and buy the regular box of graham crackers and pound away! To the graham crackers, add 2 tablespoons of sugar and a stick and a half melted butter. 

I like to do the hand squish test to know if the graham crackers are at the right consistency. Take a chunk of graham cracker in your hand and squeeze it together. If it stays together easily, then it's good to go. If it falls apart or crumbles as you open your hand, then it probably needs a little more melted butter. Go ahead and try it.

Once you get the right consistency, grab a 9x13 pan and spray it with a little baking spray for easy release later. Pat the graham cracker firmly into the pan so that it's even. Bake in the oven at 325F for 10 minutes. After you take it out, let it cool on a wire rack while you make your cheesecake filling.

On to the filling. Using a stand mixer, mix together the cream cheese and the sour cream until it's smooth. Add the sugar next and mix until light and fluffy. 

Once it's incorporated, add in the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each egg. 

In a small bowl, combine the lemon zest, lemon juice, and the vanilla. Add that into the cream cheese mixture and mix well.

When the cream cheese mixture is nice and smooth, pour it on top of the graham cracker crust. 

Sprinkle the blueberries on top. You can use fresh blueberries, but I only had frozen wild blueberries on hand. If you're using frozen blueberries, don't thaw them beforehand because they'll leave purple streaks everywhere. 

Bake for about 35-40 minutes. You'll know when it's done when the middle of the cheesecake stops jiggling and is semi-firm. Don't worry if it isn't completely firm because it'll harden in the fridge. Take the cheesecake out of the oven and let cool to room temperature before you put it into the fridge. This is very important that you wait for it to cool! Let it chill in the fridge for 3-4 hours before you slice and serve. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

-13.5oz box of graham cracker crumbs

-2 tbl sugar

-1 1/2 stick butter, melted

-16 oz cream cheese, room temperature (I might use 24oz next time)

-8 oz sour cream

-3/4 cup sugar

-2 eggs

-juice and zest of 1 lemon

-1 tsp vanilla

-1.5 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325F. Lightly grease a 13x9in pan.

1. To make the crust, combine graham crackers, sugar, and melted butter until fully incorporated. Crust should not fall apart easily.

2. Press crust into the pan firmly and evenly.

3. Bake for 10 minutes.

4. Cool on wire rack while making the filling.

5. To make the filling, with a stand/hand mixer, mix together the cream cheese and sour cream until smooth on medium speed.

6. Add sugar and mix on med-high speed.

7. Drop in 1 egg at a time, mixing well between each egg.

8. Add lemon juice, zest, and vanilla extract to the mixture and mix until smooth.

9. Pour cream cheese onto the graham cracker crust and smooth evenly with your spatula.

10. Sprinkle the blueberries on top.

11. Bake at 325F for 35-40 minutes or until cream cheese is slightly firm. It shouldn't jiggle like jello if it's done, nor should it be completely firm. 

12. Let cool to room temperature then place in the fridge for 3-4 hours before slicing. 

Monkey Muffins

 

If you are like any other Asian person I know, then you probably have know idea what Monkey Bread is. I guess this dessert was just not a part of the typical American desserts Asian kids were given. Growing up, the only desserts I really got were Cookies and Cream ice cream, Nestle cookies (cut and bake 'til burned), Crunch ice cream bars, and the occasional Marie Callendars apple pie from the frozen aisle of the market.

Monkey Bread is a type of cinnamon bread that you can pull apart easily because they're little balls of cinnamon/sugar dough pressed together to make one massive cake. It's delicious. I saw these Monkey muffins on Pioneer Woman's blog and wanted to make them whenever I remembered to buy biscuit dough from the market. 

I adapted from PW's recipe because I wanted to make it my own...sorta. If you want the original recipe, go here to Pioneer Woman's website. 

First off, roll the biscuits into small balls. They should be about the size of a small meatball or walnut. 2 biscuit cans made 24 servings for me. 

In a separate bowl, combine the white sugar, brown sugar, and cinnamon.











Next, you want to put a pat of butter into each muffin cup.

Add about half a teaspoon of the sugar mixture over the butter and add 3 balls to each cup. I don't have a picture, but you need to put another pat of butter and some sugar mixture over the 3 balls.

 When the balls have risen and are golden brown, take them out of the oven and drizzle them with the icing.

Voila!

Ingredients

• 2 cans of Refrigerated Biscuit Dough
• 1 stick of butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tbl Ground Cinnamon
• 2 cups powdered sugar, 2 tbl milk, 1 tsp vanilla for the icing

Preparation Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Add pats of butter to the bottom of each cup. You should use 1/2 the stick for the bottom, and 1/2 for the top. Sprinkle in sugar mixture.

Roll dough into walnut sized balls (or cut refrigerated biscuit dough into thirds). Place three into each muffin tin.

Top with the rest of the butter. Sprinkle on more sugar mixture.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden and bubbly. 

Combine the ingredients for the icing until smooth. Pour icing on top of each muffin.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto!

A friend posted this blog on my facebook a loonngg time ago, and I bookmarked it hoping that I'd get a chance to make it someday. Well, that day finally came. A different friend of mine has this odd obsession with Domo-kun, that strange little Japanese character. Why? Who knows. I guess it's cute in its own little way. I wanted to make it for her as a little treat.

Several steps went a little south when making this cookie, but overall, it looked okay. Something weird happened with the salt content, and the cookies came out really salty. Maybe it's because I used kosher salt in the dough. Definitely won't be doing that next time. Actually, I think I would lower the salt content in the recipe by half just to be on the safe side.



So here are the instructions from the blog. The only adaption I made was to lower the salt content. You can see photos on the original blog to help you assemble the brown and red dough.

Domo TKOs

adapted from The Essence of Chocolate

Brown Dough
1 cup + 2 tbsp flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2/3 of 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
10 tbsp butter, cut into 3/4" cubes, room temperature

Red Dough
1/2 cup + 1 tbsp flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 of 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
5 tbsp butter, cut into 3/4" cubes, room temperature
a few drops red food coloring

First for the brown colored dough, mix the flour, cocoa powder,sugar, baking soda, and salt together. Add the butter and incorporate it into the dry ingredients until it comes together as a dough. Gather it in a ball, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for 10 minutes.

For the red dough, mix together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Incorporate the butter with a spatula and then add the food coloring, mixing just until no more red streaks remain. Gather the dough and refrigerate for 10 minutes.


Take some of the brown dough and make it into a rectangular prism so that the short sides measure 1 1/4 x 3/4" and place it so the longer edge (1 1/4") is parallel with your table. Next take a red piece of dough and make a rectangular prism with 3/4 x 1/2" short sides. Center this red rectangular strip on top of your first brown one with the longer edge (3/4") touching the brown dough.

Then make two narrow rectangular prisms with the brown dough with the short sides measuring 3/4 x 1/4". Place them on both sides of the red rectangular piece of dough with the shorter edge (1/4") touching the brown base. Finally, make another brown rectangular prism with the short side measuring 3/4 x 1/4". Place that prism on top of the red prism and between the other two narrow brown prisms.

Now smooth away the lines between the dough pieces and round the corners of your large rectangular prism. I find it easier to repeat this whole process multiple times with all of the dough to ensure that the shape of the mouth doesn't get distorted by working with too much dough at once. Once finished, wrap the shaped dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate till firm, around 30 minutes.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F. Take the dough out from the fridge and slice it into 1/8-inch pieces, placing them onto parchment lined baking sheets. Bake them for 12 minutes. Let them cool on the sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack. 


I used store bought white frosting and chocolate frosting to make the eyes and mouth.